The author of the report, Richard F. Grimmet--a specialist in international security--said that the largest supplier of deadly weapons during the eight-year period are: the United States ($166.3-B, 40% of total sales), Russia ($74-B, 18%), France ($35.1-B, 8%), United Kingdom ($29.4-B, 7%), Germany ($19.7-B, 5%), China ($13.6-B, 3%), Italy ($12.5-B, 3%), Other European ($43.7-B, 10%), and Others (22.5-B, 5%).

Notice that the five permanent Member States of the UN Security Council are the leading players in the weapons sale: China, France, Russia, the UK, and the US.

It has been noted that there was a surge of arms transfer from non-traditional suppliers like Israel, Spain, Sweden and Ukraine.

Arms sale has found a huge market in developing countries "where most of the potential for the outbreak of regional military conflicts currently exists."

A few of the weapons sold were: artillery (air and field defense artillery, mortars, rocket launchers and recoilless rifles), surface-to-air missiles (all ground-based air defense missiles); and surface-to-surface missiles (Scuds and CSS-2s).

With these data, it seems funny that the dole outs of rich countries to poor countries are nothing compared to the humongous profits from arms alone.

According to Control Arms--an international civil society partnership campaigning for bulletproof Arms Trade Treaty--arms sale is bolstering human suffering and poverty, and is also uncontrollable.

Remember these numbers: Over 2000 people-killed by arms each day; 8 million-the number of light weapons produced each year; and 12 billion-the number of bullets produced each year.